Chris Lombardi puts defense and security under the spotlight, as he shares his takes on recent NATO and EU cooperation and provides insight into the company’s own long-term strategic partnerships in Europe.

Three trends are currently driving the global electricity sector: decarbonization, decentralization and differentiation. Utilities are making significant contributions to mitigate carbon emissions, while a technology revolution is …

This is the fundamental principle behind what Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock calls ‘fair and efficient pricing’.

Kinnock’s argument is essentially a very simple one: people must start to pay the real cost, including the impact on the environment, of their chosen mode of transport.

For car owners who decline the more eco-friendly option of using public transport, as well as for the Union’s trucking industry, this would mean higher road taxes, increased fuel charges and more road tolls.

On a more fundamental level, it means Europeans having to give up one of the 20th century’s most treasured dreams: the freedom to take to the open highway and drive off into the sunset.

The power of this fantasy has been proved as people continue to buy into it despite the fact that the open road succumbed long ago to the 20-kilometre tailback and the sunset is usually obscured by a haze of brown smog.

Kinnock first put forward his plans for changing the way transport charges are levied in a 1995 Green Paper called Fair and Efficient Pricing.

At the time, the transport supremo went to great lengths to insist that the European Commission was not inherently anti-car.

However, the document makes it abundantly clear that radical changes are needed to road transport systems if the Union’s highways are to avoid grinding to a halt in the very near future.

Kinnock returned to this theme in a recent speech. “The charges for using the transport system must be better aligned with the full economic and environmental costs of transport decisions,” he said.

“To get transport right, it is going to be essential to get prices right, because in transport, as in all sectors of the economy, price signals guide the allocation of scarce economic and environmental resources. As long as transport is grossly mispriced, economic and environmental inefficiency will be perpetuated.”

However, the Commission’s room for manoeuvre is fairly limited when it comes to persuading EU governments to adopt transport policies which reflect the true cost of driving.

Most of the financial incentives which could be used to discourage car use, such as road taxes, tolls and fuel pricing, are a matter for national governments rather than the EU as a whole.

The taxation of international lorry traffic is one of the few areas where Kinnock does have the right to propose legislation. But the signs are not promising. The Commissioner’s plans to revise the Eurovignette tax-disc system to take account of environmental costs have become well and truly log-jammed in Council of Ministers negotiations.

Not only are EU governments far from agreed on the scheme, but it has also been taken hostage in a parallel dispute between the Union and Switzerland over road tolls.

Environment Commissioner Ritt Bjerregaard appears to be faring slightly better in her efforts to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) produced by new cars.

Bjerregaard said in March that an offer from European carmakers’ lobby ACEA to reduce average CO2 emissions to 140 grammes per kilometre by the year 2008 represented the basis for further discussions.

The ACEA proposal is currently being studied by EU governments and will be discussed by environment ministers when they meet in Brussels next month.

Meanwhile, in February the European Parliament adopted a package of measures arising from the ‘Auto-Oil’ programme which is designed to cut pollution from cars by 60-70% by 2010.

However, MEPs went further than EU governments were prepared to go and the two sides must now enter into conciliation talks to seek a compromise solution.